Favors
by Calypsy
Summary: When a very pregnant Octavia begs Clarke to watch over her cousin's ranch, she has no choice but to oblige. Even if it means teaming up with Octavia's insufferable older brother to get the job done. (Not a badly done Hallmark country movie, total Bellarke and chillness plus your favorite characters popping in and out)
1. Of Waffles

When Clarke's phone began tinkling it's innocent little theme song, she couldn't have known what answering it would mean for her. After all, Octavia regularly phoned to ask about trivial things, like colors for the nursery or whether she should cut her hair. It didn't even occur to her that, goddess forbid, Octavia was calling to ask for a favor.

"Hey Futuremama, what's up?," Clarke answered, hearing a small chuckle from her friend at the nickname she had bestowed upon her, a play on the animated comedy Lincoln so vehemently adored.

"I have a favor to ask you."

A grimace contorted Clarke's features, but the 'ding' of the waffle-maker prevented her from voicing her distaste. She tilted her head uncomfortably to hold the phone against her shoulder, using both hands to open up the steaming metal contraption within which her breakfast awaited. "What's up, O?," she asked, deciding to at least tolerate the request.

There was a pause at the end of the line, then; "Lincoln surprised me with tickets for a week-long tropical retreat. I think it's a ploy to try and relax my birth canal pre-baby, but it's a nice thought, right?"

At this, Clarke's eyebrows rose a bit, but she was mostly preoccupied with lifting a horribly scorched waffle from it's coffin. "Oh come on, this thing is automatic, how the fuck did it burn?," she muttered to herself, although she heard another of Octavia's snickers. "Yeah, that's really cool, O," she added distractedly, pouring more batter into the thing as if somehow, another shot would turn out edible. "Have fun."

"There's just one little problem. My cousin, you know, the one with the hair? He broke his foot and needs someone to watch his ranch and do some manual work, just to get it ready for summer." Clarke breathed in sharply at the mention of ranch work, but Octavia continued before she could say anything. "Bellamy is going there to do the work part, you wouldn't have to worry about that. He has a huge fear of horses though and won't go near them, so I need someone to feed and move them from pasture to pasture whenever he needs to get work done. I know it's a lot to ask, but as soon as we're back, Lincoln and I will take over."

Clarke's mood was further compromised when she removed another burnt waffle, and then again when Octavia mentioned Bellamy. Her best friend's brother wasn't exactly her biggest fan, nor she his. She stayed silent for a moment, unplugging the waffle-maker and leaning heavily against the counter while she mulled over the request. Octavia didn't have any other family to ask, or she would have, and all of their friends were wrapped up in finals.

"Okay, I'll do it." She wouldn't be able to handle making Octavia sad, or worse, making her miss her trip. Not to mention, the woman was eight months pregnant and her wrath was inescapable.

"Thank you so, so much, I really owe you one! I'll text you the address, there are instructions for feeding the horses posted in the kitchen. Bellamy will be there tomorrow. And Clarke?" Octavia's tone of voice suddenly transferred from jovial gratitude to seriousness.

"Yeah?"

"Please, just try and get along with him. He's really not as bad as you think."

Clarke hollowly assured her that she would, then said her goodbyes and wished her friend a fun time. But once the call had ended...

"Not a fucking chance."


	2. The First Day

_This has to be done sarcastically. Come on, Moondust Stables?_ Even Clarke's thought-voice automatically said the ranch's name in a whiny, mocking tone. She scoffed as she steered her car to hug the turn of the long dirt driveway. But although she was skeptical of the sobriquet, the beauty of the place could not be denied. Pastures bordered the road up until the house was reached, which itself was big and beige and wonderfully designed. The vine-webbed pillars lining the front porch satisfied some architectural longing Clarke didn't even know she possessed.

A truck was parked in a grassy area between the house and burnt-orange barn, and she pulled in next to it. Allowing her car (affectionately named Sebastian) to hum in park, she retrieved her phone to text Octavia.

 **Just arrived. No one is supposed to be here right?**

As she sat there awaiting a response, a sobering thought dawned on her. It couldn't be him, right? He was supposed to arrive the next day. Steeling herself internally, she reluctantly turned Sebastian off and went to confirm her fears.

Naturally, the key wasn't under the mat, a fact which drew a whispered, "That fucker must be here," from Clarke. When she tried the door it swung open easily, which was yet another testimony to the man's idiocy.

"Bellamy, where are you? Don't be frightened, it's not a horse. Just Clarke," she called out, closing the door and pointedly locking it.

She expected some hollered remark, but there was nothing.

"Bellamy?," she called again, scanning the kitchen and living room displayed before her. To her surprise, the place was tastefully decorated and didn't involve any standard country fads. She poked her heads into a few other rooms on the first floor, but her adversary was nowhere to be found. For a moment she thought maybe, just maybe, he was being productive and had already started on his work, but a quick scan across each pasture shot down that sparkle of hope. He must be in the house.

She mounted the stairs, but still heard nothing, saw nothing. There were five bedrooms, one of which was the master, but since she figured he'd leave that one untouched, she checked all the rest first. Predictably, there was still nothing. _It's worth a sho_ t, she thought with a shrug, pushing open the door of the master bedroom.

And she found him, alright. With company, too.

A beautiful girl was laying across the bed, her peach dress (which went incredibly with her dark skin, Clarke noticed) hiked up around her ribcage. Bellamy was propped up over her, his frankly ridiculous body donned in nothing but boxers. Great. As she watched, he gave the surreal beauty a dark-eyed, hungry look before bending his head to kiss and scrape his teeth against her midriff.

"Oh my god!," the girl exclaimed, pushing Bellamy's head away so she could tug down her dress. He turned to look at Clarke, his muscles taut while he still held himself over the body he had been so preoccupied with. When her eyes met his, several things happened at once. She got pissed for one, and then flustered, and then downright hot. But she stoically ignored the last thing.

"Really dude? In your cousin's room?" Shaking her head and trying to dispel the awkwardness, she made her leave.

Her hand fell from the doorknob and she stood outside the room for a moment, her heart pounding. _Shut up, body!_ , she thought bitingly. She had just walked in on the most intimate, erotic moment and she didn't know whether she wanted both of them, or if she was just jealous of Bellamy. Or was she jealous of the girl..? The thought was shunned as soon as it occurred to her, replaced by a small laugh escaping her lips while she walked away from the door. Clarke was not a jealous girl, but of all things, she would never be jealous of getting kissed by Bellamy.

Her phone buzzed as she pounded back down the stairs to get her bags.

 **Uh ya I lied, Bellamy got there today. Sorry babe :)**

 **Yes I see that. And he brought a friend too.**

 **Ooh, is it Jasper? I love that boy**

 **A half naked friend.**

Clarke shoved her phone into the depths of her pocket when she got to the car, sacrificing the painful conversation in favor of grabbing her two bags. On the way back into the house and across the first story, the image of them together flashed through her mind an unnecessary amount of times. To make matters worse, she nearly dropped her bags when halfway up the stairs a chorus of moans and thumps reached her ears. She was totally unequipped to handle the sounds of them fucking, so she just dropped her bags off in front of a random room and fled outside once more, telling herself she needed to read the feeding instructions.

Unfortunately enough for her, the neighbor lady had already fed the animals, so that wasn't an option for time occupation until the pair finished. Feeling incredibly out of place and already dreading the rest of her stay, she made the decision to hide out in the barn for a while.

When she finally resolved to leave her hideout, a present was waiting for her outside. Bellamy stood there, clothed now in jeans and a black t shirt much to her relief. The image from earlier that day bobbed to the surface of her mind, prompting her to turn away and focus on pulling shut one of the heavy barn doors. She didn't even know what she was thinking, she sure as hell didn't want him to see anything etched upon her face.

"Need some help with that?" His rich voice didn't sound mocking, but Clarke knew better than to mistake his monotone for something else.

She continued to stoically heave at the ridiculous thing, having to lend most of her body weight into forcing the door into the middle of the track. Before she finished with hers, Bellamy took hold of the other door and effortlessly tugged it into place. Resisting the urge to shoot him a glare, she latched the entrance with maybe a bit too much force.

He waited there, watching her. But the girl couldn't hold a normal conversation with him, couldn't bring herself to face those intense eyes dead on. So she turned the opposite direction and began to walk toward the house. If he wanted to talk to her, then fine, but it would be done in motion.

Much to her disappointment, he caught up with her in a few strides and breached the conversation she so desperately wished to avoid. "You know, you really shouldn't just go barging into people's rooms."

"You really shouldn't forget to lock the door. The front one was open as well, are you trying to get your cousin's shit stolen?"

He breathed a low laugh, shaking his head. She glanced at him as he did this, mildly fascinated by the way his curls splayed across his forehead. But then, fucking again, it reminded her of earlier. _Get a grip, Griffin. It wasn't_ that _sexual_. "We're in the country, no one's going to rob this place. And I didn't forget to lock the bedroom door. Octavia said you wouldn't be here until tomorrow."

Clarke grimaced and folded her arms across herself, lending her body extra warmth against the chill of the nearing nighttime. "Big surprise." And then, an actual surprise, she granted him a rare nugget of honesty. "That girl you were with really was beautiful."

He looked over at her, his mouth slightly open in surprise. "Is that jealousy I hear, Clarke Griffin?" He stopped, and much to her dismay, her legs stopped walking as well. His face grew solemn and he leaned in a bit, mostly over her because _fuck_ he's tall. "Do you want me instead?" Before a blush of fury (or whatever) could even rise to her face, he turned away and chuckled. With a mild sense of embarrassment, she realized he was kidding and not, in fact, calling her out.

"Very funny. I meant it appreciatively. I do love dark haired girls," she admitted, partly just throwing her bisexuality into the conversation to surprise him.

Unfortunately for her, there was no way to tell if he was affected by this. His face was of stone when he swung open the front door, gesturing through it with a flourish. "After you," he intoned humbly, and even then she couldn't stop the suspicion she felt at his manners. Pursing her lips, she swept through the door and towards the kitchen. "You're right, she is beautiful, but we're mostly just friends. She's having a hard time right now and needed a distraction. I like to think I was useful."

She rolled her eyes to herself while she bent over to retrieve a beer from the fridge. "Doctor Blake, bursting in to save the day," she noted dryly, straightening. He moved towards the fridge and Clarke went into flight mode, but even if she could slink across the room, there was nowhere left to run from their conversation. The barn was out of the question (and cold now) and she was having a full-on 100% talk with him. About sex. She went to the sliding double doors that lead to the side balcony, intent on appreciating the last of the colors leaking from the eastern horizon. She didn't get to, for in a fraction of a second he snatched her gaze with his own and didn't break it as he got a beer for himself. When he approached her, stopping a few feet away to peel open the lid on the counter, the silence became too potent for her to bear. "Is she asleep upstairs?"

He shook his head and took a swig of the Bud Lite. "She left half an hour ago, he car was parked at the end of the driveway. Didn't want to get it dirty," he noted with small but affectionate smile.

Suddenly Clarke needed a change in conversation. "So, you're terrified of horses, huh? Did one bite you when you were a child or something?"

His expression became thunderous. "Fuck off, Griffin," he said tiredly, coming over to slide the doors open and step outside. She stepped back quickly as he passed, but even so his shoulder nudged against her back and for a moment she thought she might choke.

That could've been it. She could've been all, "Seeya later 'fraidy cat," and retreated to her room, neither of them the worse for wear. For the first time that night, she was in control of the situation.

But did she do what her consciousness was shrieking at her to do?

Fuck no.

She stepped out behind him, hovering near the door and analyzing his back. Mostly because it was the only part of him she could see, as he was leaning heavily on the balcony facing away from her, but some small part of her mind (a very small part) was really appreciating roving her eyes across his tense shoulders. "Octavia's birthday is coming up."

"And?"

"And, we're having a surprise party at Indra's beach house."

She could practically hear the sneer in his words. "And no one thought to include me in the planning?"

"Get over yourself, dude. What the hell do you think I'm doing right now? It's not for a month, you can help us plan shit out if it's going to soothe your offende-"

He straightened suddenly and wheeled around to face her down, his dark eyes glinting coldly in the dim light. "Jesus, don't you have science books to read for fun or something? You're the last person I want to talk to about Octavia's birthdays." His words were like icy daggers against her ears, and she gaped at him in shock.

Never, not even once in the two years that followed O's 21st, the night that Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin had first met, had they ever spoken about "the incident."

Wordlessly, she set her beer down on top of a grill positioned beside her and walked back into the house.

* * *

 **So, some stuff going on in this chapter. If I did my job right, then there should be a feeling of inferred spite growing between them. They have some biz in the past that's too awkward to bear (haven't fully decided what it is yet) and their awkwardness translated into hatred because they're both shit at communicating their feelings.**

 **I'm debating doing the next chapter from B's point of view, but I guess we'll see what happens.**

 **Please review, and feel free to request stuff! :)**


	3. A Simple Task

The alarm on Clarke's phone went off at 10:30 a.m.

It was never an event to be celebrated, but the fact that she was fucking exhausted made her that much more reluctant to give in to the shrill insistence.

The night before, she had been up for hours furiously doodling, or writing in her journal, or doing literally anything to distract from how annoyed she was with Bellamy. When 4 rolled around, she let out a little groan-scream into her pillow and resolved that sleep could not be achieved without medicinal aid. No, not pot... although Clarke had stashed a little in her suitcase, just in case Blake pissed her off badly enough for that level of ~chill~ to be needed. But it was only the first of a whole eight long nights, and she suspected that the ~chill~ would be absolutely vital at some point in the future. So instead she popped half a Xanax and dozed off listening to Coldplay. Her slumber clearly didn't last long enough; when she woke up, the shadows under her eyes resembled mascara after a nap.

The coffee maker woke Bellamy up all of the way from downstairs, and although Clarke didn't really want to see him, it was admittedly satisfying to watch him bumble into the kitchen with death upon his face.

"Get your beauty sleep, princess?," she greeted him sweetly.

"Princess, my ass," he grumbled, not even making pretenses at good humor. "You're the one with a crown on her bedroom dresser."

This little detail, or the fact that he remembered it from two years ago, was both surprising and very weird. "Please. That's the crown of a queen." The liquid finished dripping into her cup and she turned away from him to retrieve it, relieved for an excuse to not look him in the eyes. Avoiding his stare was becoming second-nature, although avoiding him altogether would've been the preferable course of action.

She heard a stool scrape against the ground behind her, along with a grouchily intoned, "Make me one too while you're at it."

At this, a little laugh bubbled from her diaphragm. _He's definitely not a morning person... I could use this to my advantage_ , she mused, imagining brutally waking him up at 6 am if he managed to piss her off more. Her blue irises flashed in his direction for but a moment while she pulled away from the counter.

"I would enjoy nothing greater, but I'm afraid I have to go throw hay for the horses. _So_ sorry." Her voice took on a disturbingly convincing mellifluous tone once more, and the reaction of a low grunt she heard from him sent a wave of self-satisfaction through her. It seemed that yesterday he had pushed all her buttons effortlessly, but was completely unaffected by her own mocking. Whether it was his abhorrence of waking up or her falsely kind words, she left the house feeling like she finally had the upper hand.

* * *

And she did, for a time. Mostly because she barely saw him through the day.

When Clarke finished throwing hay for each of the seven horses, she came back to the house to find that Bellamy was already off working in the vacant arena. She spied on him a teeny tiny bit when she first spotted him out there, picking up big ass rocks and tossing them into the bucket of a tractor like they were pillows. It looked like grueling work, and for the first time since she arrived, Clarke was glad that she wasn't the only one there.

She spent the first part of the day working on a shitty poem she had begun the night before. She really was the worst at poetry, and she knew it too, but for some reason she had a notebook almost entirely filled with little drabbles. It had kind of morphed into a nervous habit, something to do when there was no one to talk to, nothing else to occupy her attention.

At around noon, there was someone to talk to.

Her phone let out a shriek that nearly scared the piss out of her and caused her hand to jerk and leave a giant scar of blue ink across her masterpiece. Cursing to herself, she scrambled across the bed to where it rested on her nightstand.

"What the hell, dude? You never texted me back last night, what happened!?"

Clarke winced a bit at the ferocity of Octavia's tone, or maybe the shame it instilled in her. The woman had a great scolding voice, and would friggin' rock as a mother. Hell, half the time she had to mother Clarke. "There was a truck outside and I figured it belonged to your brother, so I went looking for him. Found him in your cousin's room about to bone a supermodel. That's about it." Amazingly, Clarke sounded detached and rather indifferent to her own ears.

"No way! What did she look like? I bet I know her, tell me what she looked like!," O pleaded, clearly far more interested in the awkward situation than Clarke was.

She lifted a hand to her forehead, covering her eyes. "Dark hair, caramel skin... Great smile?"

At the last detail, Octavia gasped. "No. Way. Bellamy slept with Raven Reyes!? This is crazy!"

Clarke stood up and walked out of the guest room, shutting the door firmly behind her. This was a conversation she could no longer sit still through. "I guess? Can we please not talk about this anymore, it was super weird. I just want to live in denial and forget I ever saw your brother nearly naked."

"Okay, fine. Fine. I guess I'll just have to gossip to Lincoln about it on the plane ride, since my best friend is incompetent. Speaking of the plane, that's actually mostly why I called you. I just wanted to let you know that we're going to board in a little bit, and that I'll text you during our first layover so you know we're safe. Make sure Bellamy gets actual work done, I'll see you next week! Love you, bye!"

Clarke didn't have the option to tell her before the line cut off that, shockingly, Bellamy _was_ getting actual work done. "Love you too?," she said skeptically, tossing her phone onto the couch when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

She went to the eastern window, looking out into the arena where the subject of her stress was located. He looked rather stressed out himself, reclining on the seat of the tractor and rubbing his jaw.

A sigh echoed through Clarke's lungs, and she decided to do something very out of character for her.

Seven minutes later, she walked up behind him, a mug cradled in her palms. "I don't know how you like your coffee, but I put a little cream in there to tone down the strength of this stuff."

He turned in his seat to examine her through the open door of the tractor, his own expression as inscrutable as always. "A little cream is fine, but I like my coffee black."

Her first instinct was to tell him to act fucking grateful because she was being a good little companion, but that isn't what she did. "Trust me, a little cream will do you good. I think the bitterness of your coffee is seeping into your attitude." She lifted the steaming cup to him, a peace offering with her sass.

"There's no cyanide in this, right?" He accepted the mug from her and sniffed at it suspiciously.

"You're welcome."

He took a long drink of it, almost set it in the cup-holder, then lifted his lips to take a few more swigs of the scalding stuff. Apparently satisfied (although you wouldn't know it looking at him,) he dropped down in front of her. "Thanks, I guess. Although I could've used it a few hours ago. Or a sandwich, I could've used a sandwich."

"Now you're pushing it," she said with a half-smile. A genuine half-smile, which was a rare occurrence around her least favorite acquaintance.

But then he grimaced, actually _grimaced_ at her kindness, and strode towards the front of the tractor. Well that wasn't fucking fly, in Clarke's opinion.

"Damn dude, if you're that hungry then you can go make yourself a sandwich. I'll stay here and take care of this stuff." The offer was meant to spite him, but really she was just doing him another favor. _I have got to stop being nice to people..._ But perhaps underneath it all, she felt the need to be appreciated after the way he had just treated her innocent smile.

Bellamy barked a short laugh, looking over his shoulder to cock his eyebrows at her. "Really, Griffin? Don't bother, it's not like you'll get much done anyway."

Now that got to her. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?," she huffed, planting her hands on her hips in order to properly square off with him.

He shrugged and crouched in front of a rock embedded in the hard ground. "It just means that you aren't exactly the most dedicated of workers, Clarke. Besides, look at you. You're tiny, and this is harder than it looks. Just leave it to me." He tugged a metal thing out of his back pocket and dug it into the earth beside the rock, attempting to pry it out.

"Gimme that metal thing," she growled, walking over and attempting to shove him away by the shoulder. He was solid against her hand and didn't fall back, so she just knelt beside him and swatted his hands away, grabbing the handle of the metal thing.

He didn't leave as she intended, which made it very awkward while she uselessly jiggled the thingie. She probably would've just dug the damned rock out with her hands if he hadn't been so near to her. She told herself that the rock would probably be in the bucket by now if she couldn't feel the warmth of his breath against her neck. Or if her stomach didn't do flips every time he shifted and his knee brushed hers.

No helpful tips were offered, nor any jokes. He was just there, right up in her personal space, and silent. Which meant the longer she feebly wore away at the dirt holding the rock in place, the more frustrated and flustered she became. A low chuckle emanated from his throat, and her face grew hot. She chocked it up to the sun and her excessive amount of layers, so she released the thing to forcefully tug off her sweatshirt. When the cloth cleared her eyes, she caught him looking at her with a bored expression.

"Sure you don't just want help, Princess?"

"I'm not the princess, you're the Princess," she snapped at him, going at the rock with a new fervor.

"Ha, as if. I'm not the one struggling with a rock. I'm like a knight, but not in shining armor. Real knights have dirty armor because they're getting shit done and impaling people. Or a commander of an army, that would be suitable as well," he murmured thoughtfully, leaning back on his hands and extending a leg.

Clarke eyed him in a sneaky-fashion, internally criticizing the way he lounged out on the ground as casually as if it was a recliner. _Cocky son of a_... Before her thought could be finished, her sweaty hands lost their grip on the metal thing and the force she was using brought her palm scraping across the surface of the rock.

"Fuck."

She and Bellamy uttered the curse in tandem, although his tone was disbelieving while hers was pissed. He let out one of those cocky little laughs she hated, taking her injured appendage before she could protest and examining the cut along her lifeline. "Damn, girl. You're more delicate than I thought."

The sight of her hand in his brought back the memories from yesterday, of those same hands roaming Raven's body... And then how after Clarke left, continued their passionate journey along her skin...

She snatched arm back, his calloused thumb running along her injury and sending a small shock through her. "Whatever, man," was her only response, which left her feeling rather lame. Determined to retain some semblance of pride, she grabbed the metal thing once more, a small hiss escaping from between her teeth at the contact with her palm.

"Clarke, what are you doing?," Bellamy immediately sounded, suddenly alarmed. "There's dirt and tiny rock bits and probably horse shit in that cut, go wash it off."

She swung her head to stare at him accusingly. "Are you kidding me? I'm a tough guy, and tough guys don't quit because of a little blood." A distasteful frown bowed her lips. "Or horse shit."

He tried to speak again, but she shushed him before he had the chance. For a few minutes she struggled with the prying tool, but inevitably had to tug it out of the ground and toss it aside. She started digging around the rock with one hand, aggressively punching her fingers into the dirt to loosen it then scooping out handfuls. It took a while and was really a rather inconvenient way, but eventually the rock was loose enough to tip upon its side. With a triumphant "aha" directed in Bellamy's direction, she scooped the large thing into her arm and hauled the rock over to the bucket, successfully dropping it in only after she almost dropped it on her feet. Bellamy had started towards her at that, outstretching his arms, and it made her feel like the whole ridiculous show was worth it.

When Clarke turned back to Bellamy with a shit-eating grin on her face, his eyes slid shut and one of his hands rose to grip his nose. She suspected he was really just trying to get a grip on his patience.

"Jesus, Clarke. This is done for a day, I'll go make myself a goddamn sandwich. Just take care of your nasty hand, alright?" He looked at her for a moment, and then after whispering another "Jesus, Clarke" he shook his head and started toward the house.  
"And don't forget the screwdriver."

* * *

In which Clarke struggles with simple tasks and Bellamy gets under her skin. And Octavia is an innocent, blissful soul because that is what she deserves.

Raven will be back in the story because I love that girl, and I'm thinking of introducing someone else as the neighbor who comes to help out. Now which character will that be..?

Next chapter will most likely involve the use of the hot tub in the back of the house and/or an inconveniently timed sex dream about Bellamy. Stay tuned homies


End file.
